Nineteen previously sealed court documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and registered sex offender, were disclosed to the public on Thursday.
Their release by a New York judge came the day after the first batch of documents was unveiled as part of a lawsuit against Epstein by one of his victims.
The second set of documents did not shed a great deal of new light on the case and included many of the names previously made public.
These documents had been previously sealed or redacted, concealing the identities of over 100 victims, associates, or friends of Epstein, each identified as “J Doe” along with a distinctive identifying number.
This was the first set of documents to be unsealed under a 18 December court order and more documents are expected to be unsealed in the coming weeks.
US judge Loretta Preska ordered that the court filings in a lawsuit brought against Ghislaine Maxwell by Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre must finally be unsealed and the names of up to 200 “John and Jane Does” unredacted.
She mentioned that many did not oppose the release of the documents. Judge Preska did instruct that certain names be kept redacted to protect the identities of sexual abuse victims.
However, there were no bombshell revelations in the first batch as most of it had already been widely publicised. The list of names included a mix of prominent individuals, with the majority facing no allegations of misconduct. Those listed include “alleged victims, people not accused of wrongdoing…and absent third parties.” Being identified through the court documents does not mean that the individual was involved in or aware of any wrongdoing by Epstein.
Here are some of the key takeaways:
Some of the names in the unsealed court documents have been linked to Epstein in the past. Among those in Wednesday’s documents are former presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, late former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson and late AI pioneer Marvin Minsky. David Copperfield and Michael Jackson also are mentioned.
Prince Andrew:
The newly unsealed court documents contain references to Johanna Sjoberg, who has accused British royal member, Prince Andrew of groping her breast in Epstein’s Manhattan apartment in 2001. Buckingham Palace has vehemently denied her allegations.
In a deposition, Sjoberg claimed that Prince Andrew “put his hand on my breast”. In 2022, the royal settled a suit claiming sexual abuse that was filed by another accuser, Virginia Giuffre.
The documents, filed in federal district court in Manhattan, provide additional context to shed light on the connections Epstein had cultivated over the years with influential figures, including former presidents, Mr Trump and Mr Clinton, as well as a member of the British royalty, Prince Andrew.
The vast majority of names in the documents were already well-known associates of Epstein. However, certain new details have emerged, notably from the deposition of alleged Epstein victim, Sjoberg. She has stated that she was trafficked by Epstein from 2001 to 2006.
Bill Clinton:
In her 2016 deposition, Ms Sjoberg was questioned about whether Epstein had ever mentioned former president Bill Clinton. She testified that Epstein had once remarked that Clinton “likes them young, referring to girls”.
Previously, Mr Clinton’s spokesperson, in 2019, denied claims made about his involvement with Epstein. In a statement on X/Twitter wrote: “President Clinton knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago, or those with which he has been recently charged in New York.”
Mr Clinton’s name is mentioned 73 times in the documents so far, including footnotes.
In the second batch of documents a 2011 email from Ms Giuffre to journalist Sharon Churcher, included an accusation that Bill Clinton had threatened Vanity Fair reporters about writing stories on Epstein.
“B. Clinton walked into [Vanity Fair] and threatened them not to write sex-trafficing articles about his good friend.” [Jeffrey Epstein] the email from Ms Giuffre stated.
Donald Trump:
Ms Sjoberg also claimed that she was once on a private plane with Epstein when it made an unexpected stop in Atlantic City, New Jersey. She said that Epstein mentioned: “Great, we’ll call Trump.” She mentioned that Epstein suggested that they visit Mr Trump’s casino.
Elsewhere, Ms Sjoberg was asked if she ever gave Mr Trump a massage, to which she replied “no”.
In 2019, when asked about his relationship with Epstein following the financier’s arrest, Mr Trump said he “knew him like everybody in Palm Beach knew him”. But the former president added: “I had a falling out with him. I haven’t spoken to him in 15 years. I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you.”
David Copperfield and Michael Jackson:
In her deposition, Ms Sjoberg revealed two previously undisclosed names: David Copperfield and Michael Jackson. She said that she met Jackson at Epstein’s Palm Beach mansion. During another instance at one of Epstein’s residences, she encountered Copperfield, who, according to her, “did some magic tricks”.
Ms Sjoberg claimed that Copperfield “questioned me if I was aware that girls were getting paid to find other girls”.
‘Have a baby with me’:
In the recently released deposition, Ms Sjoberg revealed that the disgraced financier had propositioned her multiple times to have a baby with him. She stated that Epstein expressed his desire for her to be the mother of his child, to which she did not flat-out refuse but responded with a non-committal attitude, saying, “Oh, yeah, really?”
“Basically [he] just said, I want you to be the mother of my baby,” Ms Sjoberg said. “I don’t believe that I said flat-out no. I didn’t agree to it. I would just say, Oh, yeah, really?”
Stephen Hawking:
In 2015, after Ms Giuffre’s civil claim in the US, an email from Epstein to Maxwell surfaced, revealing Epstein’s request for Maxwell to “issue a reward” to counter Giuffre’s claims involving Prof Stephen Hawking in an alleged underage orgy.
The email suggested focusing on discrediting specific allegations, such as the claim that Hawking participated in such an event during a dinner in the Virgin Islands. Hawking, who died in 2018, has not been accused of a crime related to Epstein.
Ehud Barak:
According to documents, the former Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak, was a frequent visitor to Epstein’s Upper East Side townhouse between 2013 and 2017. Barak has acknowledged these meetings in the past. He said that Epstein often introduced him to individuals from various fields like art, culture, law, science, finance, diplomacy, or philanthropy. However, he never met Epstein “with girls or minors, or even adult women in improper context or behaviour”.
Noam Chomsky:
According to documents, Epstein arranged multiple meetings with Noam Chomsky in 2015 and 2016. During this time, Mr Chomsky was teaching at MIT, a university where Epstein had made significant donations. The scheduled meetings involved gatherings of academics, and Mr Chomsky also took a flight on Epstein’s private jet to New York.
One specific event included a dinner at Epstein’s townhouse with film director Woody Allen and his wife, Soon-Yi Previn.
Epstein was arrested on 6 July 2019 for sex trafficking and died by suicide in jail. His former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell was then prosecuted by the US attorney in Manhattan for helping recruit his underage victims. She was sentenced in 2022 to 20 years in prison.
Meanwhile, Maxwell’s attorneys, Arthur L Aidala and Diana Fabi Samson were quoted as saying by the Guardian: “Ghislaine Maxwell took no position on the court’s recent decision to unseal documents in Giuffre v Maxwell as these disclosures have no bearing on her or her pending appeal.”
